After much deliberation, I’ve decided to sell my ’88 SS. We bought it almost 7 years ago from the second owner as a rolling shell with 85K miles on it. The body currently has under 92K miles on it. It was repainted over 10 years ago by the previous owner in bright white base/clear. It's a 5-foot paint job; not perfect, but certainly presentable. The front bumper cover has a small tear in the lower corner, and there are some chips here and there, but overall it looks very nice for a driver. The floors, frame, rockers, quarters, doors, etc. are all very clean, as it’s been garaged most of its life. Here's a few sample pics -

That's the padding stuck to the floor, don't worry!

The interior is mostly original (like the carpet, floormats, upholstery, trim, etc), and in great shape. There's very minor fading on the top of the rear seat and the sides of the front seats, and the bolster on the driver seat is a bit worn, but that's it. It has new upper door panels and a new ABS headliner from MikesMontes, and new SoffSeal door seals. While the doorpanels were off, I added GreatStuff between the crash bars and outer door skins to get rid of the "G-body rattle" in the doors, and I added extra insulation above the headliner so it's much quieter inside. The power window switches were relocated to the lower door panel for a cleaner, more modern appearance. I also added custom 3-point rear seat belts, so young children can safely ride in the back seat. The dash has two small marks above the radio area where the previous owner installed a tach, but it’s otherwise crack-free.

The car has functioning power windows, locks, trunk, dual remote mirrors, dome light with map lights, tilt wheel, and rear defroster. It is currently set up for air conditioning (compressor, F-body A/C lines, G-body Cutlass condenser are all in place) but the system will need new O-rings and to be evacuated and charged. It was all set up and working in my old ’85 SS, but when we swapped the drivetrain from that car into this one back in 2004, I never got around to charging it. Besides that, the only other known issues are the oil pan gasket needs to be replaced, the tailshaft seal needs replaced, and the O-ring on top of the gas tank needs to be replaced as well - I just don't have the time to mess with her any more. These issues do NOT affect starting, running, or driving, and the car is available to be test-driven for seriously interested parties.

The drivetrain starts with a freshly rebuilt 2-bolt main 355 (about 2K miles since I built it 4 years ago). It is a factory 1-piece rear-main seal roller block. It has SpeedPro hypereutectic coated pistons, resized rods with ARP bolts, original crank cut/polished/turned .010 under, 58cc World Products cast iron heads with 1.94/1.50 Manley valves and screw-in studs, 9.8:1 compression, ZZ4 roller cam, aluminum roller rockers, double-roller timing chain, and a Melling oil pump with a welded-on pickup. Sealed Power rings, Clevite bearings, and Felpro gaskets were used during assembly. The motor is fed by a modified Tuned Port Injection setup on top. It has a 52mm throttlebody, ported plenum, SLP runners, and LT1 injectors. The motor also has an F-body serpentine belt bracket setup on it with an underdrive crank pulley, and the F-body dual electric fan setup. We adapted a factory '88 F-body harness to run this motor in the car; the ALDL works, as does the Service Engine Soon light. You can plug a scantool in and read codes as if the car was an F-body, and the ECM is located in the passenger kickpanel. The car has emissions-legal Edelbrock headers on it into a 2.5" Hooker cat-back exhaust – it sounds great, and does not drone inside the car, so you can actually talk to your passengers. Since the car is registered as a Collector Vehicle in NJ, I removed the smog equipment (cat, AIR, EGR) but I have the complete AIR pump assembly and EGR valve with the solenoid should you need to re-install it. There is a test-pipe in place of the cat, but it has 4-bolt flanges on either side so it would be very easy to swap a factory-style cat back into the car.

The rest of the drivetrain features a rebuilt '88 World Class 5-speed, an ’84 F-body V8 bellhousing with '81 G-body clutch/brake pedals, Z-bar, and frame bracket, along with SpeedDirect upper/lower clutch pushrods, and a Hurst shifter. I used a 16lb. factory nodular flywheel with a RAM clutch. The stock driveshaft was shortened and balanced and a bolt-in driveshaft safety loop was installed. The rear has 3.73 gears, and was overhauled about 20K miles ago with new bearings and seals and a Powertrax No Slip unit. It also has a TA Performance stud girdle differential cover.

The front end was rebuilt with Moog parts (inner/outer tie rods and centerlink), Howe Racing tall lower balljoints, and F-body lower A-arms with 1LE bushings. Tubular upper A-arms with Chrysler HD screw-in balljoints from UB Machine hold '94 Impala SS spindles and calipers with new 12" PowerSlot slotted rotors and Hawk HPS pads. Drums are still out back, but feature larger 7/8” S10 wheel cylinders and aluminum drums from an F-body. We also installed a larger Caprice master cylinder. While this is not some super trick high-dollar brake system, it sure hauls the car down respectably. Other handling mods include Eibach lowering springs, Bilstein shocks, a 34mm hollow front swaybar pirated from an F-body, and even an F-body power steering cooler. I also replaced the stock steering shaft with one from a Grand Cherokee that has U-joints on both ends instead of the rag joints. Out back, the rear is located with BMR tubular lower arms, and Edelbrock adjustable uppers with a 7/8” straight rear sway bar. Rims are 17x8” Coys C55s with 4.5” backspacing all around, and roll on 245/45 17 Continental ExtremeContact tires.

Overall, this car rides smooth (my kids fall asleep in it all the time), handles fantastic, pulls hard through all the gears, and stops great. In short, it’s the way GM should have built this car.

The car has quite a few other custom features, like a relocated battery, cold-air intake behind the headlight, G-body baffled gas tank with in-tank fuel pump, Chevy Celebrity 1-piece headlights, C5 Corvette shifter boot with a Hurst leather knob and a cupholder in the center console, ’07 Monte SS badges, Poston’s fender-to-core support braces, and a rear frame brace. The trunk is finished off with carpeted MDF panels on the sides and across the rear shelf, a carpeted cover on the lid, and a spare tire cover. Other extras that I'll throw in include a Moates Burn1 PROM burner, some spare SF512 chips, an OBD 1 scantool, and anything else I find that's Monte related around the house.

Here's a link to the album with about 40 pictures of her - https://s256.photobucket.com/albums/hh190/TPIMonteSS/1988%20SS%20For%20Sale/?start=all . I'm asking $10,800 for the car - no, I will not part it out, and I don't need to sell it, so please don't insult me with a ridiculous low-ball offer. The car is in North Jersey, close to NYC. Shoot me a PM or post if you're interested or have any questions!